Blighted and accursed families are an inescapable feature of Greek tragedy, and many scholars have treated the questions of inherited guilt, curses, and divine causation. This book gives these ...
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Blighted and accursed families are an inescapable feature of Greek tragedy, and many scholars have treated the questions of inherited guilt, curses, and divine causation. This book gives these familiar issues a fresh appraisal, arguing that tragedy is a medium that fuses the conceptual with the provoking and exciting of emotion, neither of which can be ignored if the texts are to be fully understood. It pays particular attention to Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes and the Phoenician Women of Euripides, both of which dramatize the sorrows of the later generations of the House of Oedipus, but in very different, and perhaps complementary, ways. All Greek quotations are translated.Less

Guilt by Descent : Moral Inheritance and Decision Making in Greek Tragedy

N. J. Sewell-Rutter

Published in print: 2007-10-01

Blighted and accursed families are an inescapable feature of Greek tragedy, and many scholars have treated the questions of inherited guilt, curses, and divine causation. This book gives these familiar issues a fresh appraisal, arguing that tragedy is a medium that fuses the conceptual with the provoking and exciting of emotion, neither of which can be ignored if the texts are to be fully understood. It pays particular attention to Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes and the Phoenician Women of Euripides, both of which dramatize the sorrows of the later generations of the House of Oedipus, but in very different, and perhaps complementary, ways. All Greek quotations are translated.

This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of the discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that issues of familial interaction, causation, human action, and moral responsibility in Attic ...
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This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of the discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that issues of familial interaction, causation, human action, and moral responsibility in Attic tragedy are by no means settled; and that interpreters of these endlessly absorbing and undeniably intoxicating texts ignore them at their peril.Less

Conclusion

N. J. Sewell‐Rutter

Published in print: 2007-10-01

This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of the discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that issues of familial interaction, causation, human action, and moral responsibility in Attic tragedy are by no means settled; and that interpreters of these endlessly absorbing and undeniably intoxicating texts ignore them at their peril.

This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the characteristics of a Greek tragedy. It then explains the purpose of the book, which is to shed new light on one of the central concerns ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the characteristics of a Greek tragedy. It then explains the purpose of the book, which is to shed new light on one of the central concerns of tragedy, and contribute to the understanding of the peculiar quiddity of this inescapably absorbing genre. An overview of the succeeding chapters is presented.Less

Introduction

N. J. Sewell‐Rutter

Published in print: 2007-10-01

This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the characteristics of a Greek tragedy. It then explains the purpose of the book, which is to shed new light on one of the central concerns of tragedy, and contribute to the understanding of the peculiar quiddity of this inescapably absorbing genre. An overview of the succeeding chapters is presented.

Most people have some idea what Greeks and Romans coins looked like, but few know how complex Greek and Roman monetary systems eventually became. The contributors to this book are numismatists, ...
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Most people have some idea what Greeks and Romans coins looked like, but few know how complex Greek and Roman monetary systems eventually became. The contributors to this book are numismatists, ancient historians, and economists intent on investigating how these systems worked and how they both did and did not resemble a modern monetary system. Why did people first start using coins? How did Greeks and Romans make payments, large or small? What does money mean in Greek tragedy? Was the Roman Empire an integrated economic system? This volume can serve as an introduction to such questions, but it also offers the specialist the results of original research.Less

The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans

Published in print: 2008-02-14

Most people have some idea what Greeks and Romans coins looked like, but few know how complex Greek and Roman monetary systems eventually became. The contributors to this book are numismatists, ancient historians, and economists intent on investigating how these systems worked and how they both did and did not resemble a modern monetary system. Why did people first start using coins? How did Greeks and Romans make payments, large or small? What does money mean in Greek tragedy? Was the Roman Empire an integrated economic system? This volume can serve as an introduction to such questions, but it also offers the specialist the results of original research.

Various Europeans scholars, poets, and philosophers who lived during the period between 1790 and 1905 would all agree that, aside from how Sophocles' Antigone was the best of Greek tragedies, this ...
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Various Europeans scholars, poets, and philosophers who lived during the period between 1790 and 1905 would all agree that, aside from how Sophocles' Antigone was the best of Greek tragedies, this tragedy is the closest to perfection than any other work of art created by the human spirit can get. As Athens during the 5th-century facilitated the emergence of thoughts and discussions about the pre-eminence of man, his genius was recognized in terms of poetic, philosophic, and political matters. Ideas from Romantic movements, German Idealism, and the historiography of Freud and Marx's mythography, and other such concerns were given focus in Athens. This chapter discusses how Sophocles was able to gain superiority over other Greek tragedians in his expressions of ideas regarding Idealist and Romantic concepts.Less

Chapter One

George Steiner

Published in print: 1986-01-23

Various Europeans scholars, poets, and philosophers who lived during the period between 1790 and 1905 would all agree that, aside from how Sophocles' Antigone was the best of Greek tragedies, this tragedy is the closest to perfection than any other work of art created by the human spirit can get. As Athens during the 5th-century facilitated the emergence of thoughts and discussions about the pre-eminence of man, his genius was recognized in terms of poetic, philosophic, and political matters. Ideas from Romantic movements, German Idealism, and the historiography of Freud and Marx's mythography, and other such concerns were given focus in Athens. This chapter discusses how Sophocles was able to gain superiority over other Greek tragedians in his expressions of ideas regarding Idealist and Romantic concepts.

Many studies have been written on the Greek Civil War's political causes, characteristics, and repercussions, but Greece's theater history of those years seems to have been largely forgotten. This is ...
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Many studies have been written on the Greek Civil War's political causes, characteristics, and repercussions, but Greece's theater history of those years seems to have been largely forgotten. This is unfortunate because the events of those decades have shaped the native Greek stage as well as the revival stage ever since. The theatrical debate then mirrored the contemporary turmoil and brought forth new readings of the ancient plays. This book introduces the classical performances that were staged by the political prisoners on the prison islands of the Greek Civil War (late 1940s through 1950s) and that became part of the important battle waged between the Greek Left and the Right for the stakes of the sociopolitical order. These performances open an alternative, culturally‐oriented perspective on the internecine military and political struggle at the onset of the Cold War. The book first explains the historical and political context in which the productions of ancient drama originated, the selections made by the prisoners, and the practical conditions under which the performances were mounted. It devotes ample attention, too, to acts of censorship exacted by the prison authorities. The book's main focus, however, is on the interpretation that the political detainees gave to their productions and to the rationale behind specific readings. Lastly, the book features an Antigone adaptation in the original Greek and in English translation that was written by Aris Alexandrou, one of the prisoners, and that extends the political and ideological spectrum of the classicizing productions.Less

Theatre of the Condemned : Classical Tragedy on Greek Prison Islands

Gonda Van Steen

Published in print: 2010-12-01

Many studies have been written on the Greek Civil War's political causes, characteristics, and repercussions, but Greece's theater history of those years seems to have been largely forgotten. This is unfortunate because the events of those decades have shaped the native Greek stage as well as the revival stage ever since. The theatrical debate then mirrored the contemporary turmoil and brought forth new readings of the ancient plays. This book introduces the classical performances that were staged by the political prisoners on the prison islands of the Greek Civil War (late 1940s through 1950s) and that became part of the important battle waged between the Greek Left and the Right for the stakes of the sociopolitical order. These performances open an alternative, culturally‐oriented perspective on the internecine military and political struggle at the onset of the Cold War. The book first explains the historical and political context in which the productions of ancient drama originated, the selections made by the prisoners, and the practical conditions under which the performances were mounted. It devotes ample attention, too, to acts of censorship exacted by the prison authorities. The book's main focus, however, is on the interpretation that the political detainees gave to their productions and to the rationale behind specific readings. Lastly, the book features an Antigone adaptation in the original Greek and in English translation that was written by Aris Alexandrou, one of the prisoners, and that extends the political and ideological spectrum of the classicizing productions.

This chapter focuses on Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). The Phenomenology treats tragedy both as a model for historical processes in ancient Greek society, and, for the first time, as a ...
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This chapter focuses on Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). The Phenomenology treats tragedy both as a model for historical processes in ancient Greek society, and, for the first time, as a literary genre in its own right, with a particular historical place and cultural role within the Athenian polis. In both contexts, tragedy is the process through which loss becomes constructive, furthering the development of consciousness in and beyond antiquity. Yet Greek tragedy is also importantly limited for Hegel: both its content and its form have been rendered irrevocably past by the very historical transformations it represents. Hegel's theory of tragedy encompasses moments of both loss and gain, and the power of his appropriation in the Phenomenology results from the tension between the insight into historical necessity that tragedy offers on one hand and the emotion of sorrow that it brings with it on the other.Less

Hegel’s Phenomenology: The Fate of Tragedy

Joshua Billings

Published in print: 2014-10-26

This chapter focuses on Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). The Phenomenology treats tragedy both as a model for historical processes in ancient Greek society, and, for the first time, as a literary genre in its own right, with a particular historical place and cultural role within the Athenian polis. In both contexts, tragedy is the process through which loss becomes constructive, furthering the development of consciousness in and beyond antiquity. Yet Greek tragedy is also importantly limited for Hegel: both its content and its form have been rendered irrevocably past by the very historical transformations it represents. Hegel's theory of tragedy encompasses moments of both loss and gain, and the power of his appropriation in the Phenomenology results from the tension between the insight into historical necessity that tragedy offers on one hand and the emotion of sorrow that it brings with it on the other.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of tragedy. Tragedy is the most philosophical of art forms. However, tragedy has not always been philosophical in the same way. Around 1800, tragedy's ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of tragedy. Tragedy is the most philosophical of art forms. However, tragedy has not always been philosophical in the same way. Around 1800, tragedy's way of meaning underwent a major shift, with broad consequences for thought on literature and philosophy. Through the eighteenth century, tragedy had been considered primarily in rhetorical terms as a way of producing a certain emotional effect, but since 1800 it has more often been considered in speculative terms as a way of making sense of the human world. It is only since around 1800 that works of art have been considered in such philosophical and often metaphysical terms. Greek tragedy played a leading role in this development, as the foundation for elaborating a concept of “the tragic” that extended far beyond an aesthetic context, encompassing history, politics, religion, and ontology.Less

Introduction : Tragedy and Philosophy around 1800

Joshua Billings

Published in print: 2014-10-26

This introductory chapter provides an overview of tragedy. Tragedy is the most philosophical of art forms. However, tragedy has not always been philosophical in the same way. Around 1800, tragedy's way of meaning underwent a major shift, with broad consequences for thought on literature and philosophy. Through the eighteenth century, tragedy had been considered primarily in rhetorical terms as a way of producing a certain emotional effect, but since 1800 it has more often been considered in speculative terms as a way of making sense of the human world. It is only since around 1800 that works of art have been considered in such philosophical and often metaphysical terms. Greek tragedy played a leading role in this development, as the foundation for elaborating a concept of “the tragic” that extended far beyond an aesthetic context, encompassing history, politics, religion, and ontology.

Why does tragedy give pleasure? Why do people who are neither wicked nor depraved enjoy watching plays about suffering or death? Is it because we see horrific matter controlled by majestic art? Or ...
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Why does tragedy give pleasure? Why do people who are neither wicked nor depraved enjoy watching plays about suffering or death? Is it because we see horrific matter controlled by majestic art? Or because tragedy actually reaches out to the dark side of human nature? This wide-ranging, lively and engaging book offers a new answer to this perennial question. The ‘classical’ answer to the question is rooted in Aristotle and rests on the unreality of the tragic presentation: no one really dies; we are free to enjoy watching potentially horrible events controlled and disposed in majestic sequence by art. In the nineteenth century, Nietzsche dared to suggest that Greek tragedy is involved with darkness and unreason and Freud asserted that we are all, at the unconscious level, quite wicked enough to rejoice in death. But the problem persists: how can the conscious mind assent to such enjoyment? Strenuous bodily exercise is pleasurable. Could we, when we respond to a tragedy, be exercising our emotions, preparing for real grief and fear? King Lear actually destroys an expected majestic sequence. Might the pleasure of tragedy have more to do with possible truth than with ‘splendid evasion’?Less

Why Does Tragedy Give Pleasure?

A. D. Nuttall

Published in print: 2001-03-29

Why does tragedy give pleasure? Why do people who are neither wicked nor depraved enjoy watching plays about suffering or death? Is it because we see horrific matter controlled by majestic art? Or because tragedy actually reaches out to the dark side of human nature? This wide-ranging, lively and engaging book offers a new answer to this perennial question. The ‘classical’ answer to the question is rooted in Aristotle and rests on the unreality of the tragic presentation: no one really dies; we are free to enjoy watching potentially horrible events controlled and disposed in majestic sequence by art. In the nineteenth century, Nietzsche dared to suggest that Greek tragedy is involved with darkness and unreason and Freud asserted that we are all, at the unconscious level, quite wicked enough to rejoice in death. But the problem persists: how can the conscious mind assent to such enjoyment? Strenuous bodily exercise is pleasurable. Could we, when we respond to a tragedy, be exercising our emotions, preparing for real grief and fear? King Lear actually destroys an expected majestic sequence. Might the pleasure of tragedy have more to do with possible truth than with ‘splendid evasion’?

This chapter begins with a consideration of the comparison of antiquity and modernity. From the Renaissance until around 1800, evaluative comparison of antiquity and modernity was an important mode ...
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This chapter begins with a consideration of the comparison of antiquity and modernity. From the Renaissance until around 1800, evaluative comparison of antiquity and modernity was an important mode of thought throughout Western Europe. These inquiries are often grouped under the name of the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, though, these comparisons began to disappear. They were replaced by an understanding of cultural difference and relativism that is recognizably modern. This change is known as historicization, the assumption that past societies have their own unique modes of existence, which are not necessarily comparable to one another or immediately comprehensible in contemporary terms. The chapter then, as well as the next, traces the rise of historicization and its consequences for thinking about Greek tragedy.Less

Quarreling over Tragedy

Joshua Billings

Published in print: 2014-10-26

This chapter begins with a consideration of the comparison of antiquity and modernity. From the Renaissance until around 1800, evaluative comparison of antiquity and modernity was an important mode of thought throughout Western Europe. These inquiries are often grouped under the name of the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, though, these comparisons began to disappear. They were replaced by an understanding of cultural difference and relativism that is recognizably modern. This change is known as historicization, the assumption that past societies have their own unique modes of existence, which are not necessarily comparable to one another or immediately comprehensible in contemporary terms. The chapter then, as well as the next, traces the rise of historicization and its consequences for thinking about Greek tragedy.

This chapter investigates the highly charged and emotive utterance that is the tragic curse, and considers its status as a causal factor in those plays in which it is important. It starts by ...
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This chapter investigates the highly charged and emotive utterance that is the tragic curse, and considers its status as a causal factor in those plays in which it is important. It starts by distinguishing the concept of a curse from that of inherited guilt. It then identifies the essence of the tragic curse by means of a thought-experiment involving the substitution of defixiones (the so-called ‘curse-tablets’ or ‘binding spells’) in some tragic passages where in fact we find curses. It argues that the consideration of tragic curses raises a crucial issue concerning the hierarchy of interpretative priorities that we bring to our engagement with these texts. The investigation of curses thus strikes at the heart of the interpretation of tragedy.Less

Curses

N. J. Sewell‐Rutter

Published in print: 2007-10-01

This chapter investigates the highly charged and emotive utterance that is the tragic curse, and considers its status as a causal factor in those plays in which it is important. It starts by distinguishing the concept of a curse from that of inherited guilt. It then identifies the essence of the tragic curse by means of a thought-experiment involving the substitution of defixiones (the so-called ‘curse-tablets’ or ‘binding spells’) in some tragic passages where in fact we find curses. It argues that the consideration of tragic curses raises a crucial issue concerning the hierarchy of interpretative priorities that we bring to our engagement with these texts. The investigation of curses thus strikes at the heart of the interpretation of tragedy.

This chapter investigates the agency and decision-making processes of the mortals in tragedy on whom the weight of supernatural causation rests. It considers successively fate, mortal freedom, and ...
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This chapter investigates the agency and decision-making processes of the mortals in tragedy on whom the weight of supernatural causation rests. It considers successively fate, mortal freedom, and the processes of decision, with particular emphasis on the so-called ‘decision’ scene of Eteocles in Aeschylus' Septem contra Thebas. This last phase of the investigation does not pretend to be exhaustive in itself, but rather seeks to examine certain relevant aspects of these phenomena as they present themselves to the student of familial corruption and supernatural causation. It asks how divine necessity meshes with mortal agency in certain relevant cases, and whether the former imperils the latter.Less

Fate, Freedom, Decision Making: Eteocles and Others

N. J. Sewell‐Rutter

Published in print: 2007-10-01

This chapter investigates the agency and decision-making processes of the mortals in tragedy on whom the weight of supernatural causation rests. It considers successively fate, mortal freedom, and the processes of decision, with particular emphasis on the so-called ‘decision’ scene of Eteocles in Aeschylus' Septem contra Thebas. This last phase of the investigation does not pretend to be exhaustive in itself, but rather seeks to examine certain relevant aspects of these phenomena as they present themselves to the student of familial corruption and supernatural causation. It asks how divine necessity meshes with mortal agency in certain relevant cases, and whether the former imperils the latter.

This chapter pursues a line of enquiry suggested by the consideration of Herodotus in Chapter 1. It asks whether those unfortunate descendants in tragedy who are punished for the sins of their ...
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This chapter pursues a line of enquiry suggested by the consideration of Herodotus in Chapter 1. It asks whether those unfortunate descendants in tragedy who are punished for the sins of their fathers are presented as innocent in and of themselves. It also considers the functioning of inherited guilt, its place and its workings within the architecture and the emotional and conceptual dynamics of the plays in which it appears. It argues that the study of inherited guilt must take account of the intimate and indissoluble connection between the dramatic and emotional aspect of tragedy and its conceptual burden in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of these texts. The tragedians do not examine inherited guilt aridly or in a vacuum: they weave it into the structure of their plays, introducing it at crucial moments and making it a central part of the emotional dynamics of the texts.Less

Inherited Guilt

N. J. Sewell‐Rutter

Published in print: 2007-10-01

This chapter pursues a line of enquiry suggested by the consideration of Herodotus in Chapter 1. It asks whether those unfortunate descendants in tragedy who are punished for the sins of their fathers are presented as innocent in and of themselves. It also considers the functioning of inherited guilt, its place and its workings within the architecture and the emotional and conceptual dynamics of the plays in which it appears. It argues that the study of inherited guilt must take account of the intimate and indissoluble connection between the dramatic and emotional aspect of tragedy and its conceptual burden in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of these texts. The tragedians do not examine inherited guilt aridly or in a vacuum: they weave it into the structure of their plays, introducing it at crucial moments and making it a central part of the emotional dynamics of the texts.

This chapter traces the concept of freedom in revolutionary context, and argues that Greek tragedy was a privileged vehicle for the investigation of freedom within history. Two revolutions, the ...
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This chapter traces the concept of freedom in revolutionary context, and argues that Greek tragedy was a privileged vehicle for the investigation of freedom within history. Two revolutions, the French and the Kantian, contributed to making the concept of freedom newly tragic for German thinkers of the 1790s. Far from undermining tragedy's contemporary importance, though, the new sense of historical singularity made tragedy even more necessary to philosophical definitions of modernity. Greek tragedy provided a lens for exploring questions of freedom as they related to the historical basis of individual and collective experience. The writings of F.W.J. Schelling and Friedrich Schiller consider the relation between freedom in ancient tragedy and the modern possibility of freedom with particular tenacity and insight. Their reflections, in turn, are taken up and applied by A.W. Schlegel and Gottfried Hermann, who elaborate ways of reading Greek tragedy as a genre fundamentally concerned with human freedom.Less

Revolutionary Freedom

Joshua Billings

Published in print: 2014-10-26

This chapter traces the concept of freedom in revolutionary context, and argues that Greek tragedy was a privileged vehicle for the investigation of freedom within history. Two revolutions, the French and the Kantian, contributed to making the concept of freedom newly tragic for German thinkers of the 1790s. Far from undermining tragedy's contemporary importance, though, the new sense of historical singularity made tragedy even more necessary to philosophical definitions of modernity. Greek tragedy provided a lens for exploring questions of freedom as they related to the historical basis of individual and collective experience. The writings of F.W.J. Schelling and Friedrich Schiller consider the relation between freedom in ancient tragedy and the modern possibility of freedom with particular tenacity and insight. Their reflections, in turn, are taken up and applied by A.W. Schlegel and Gottfried Hermann, who elaborate ways of reading Greek tragedy as a genre fundamentally concerned with human freedom.

This chapter traces the nexus of religion, philosophy, politics, and tragedy, concentrating on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Hölderlin in their years after the Stift. The Tübingen Stift ...
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This chapter traces the nexus of religion, philosophy, politics, and tragedy, concentrating on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Hölderlin in their years after the Stift. The Tübingen Stift was both a religious and a political institution, ensuring clerical orthodoxy while binding educated citizens to the rulers—an especially important role in an age of changing ideas of authority. Both Hegel and Hölderlin understand Greek tragedy through the lens of theology, and see Sophocles' works as the representation of a moment of transition within Greek religion. In broad terms, their theories differ from Schelling's and Schiller's in seeing Greek tragedy as a historical and progressive art form: tragedy does not just exist within temporality, but is itself a historical force, which reflects and contributes to changes in ancient Greek theology. Moreover, both conceive religion as a central element of social existence, and not as a sphere separated from political life.Less

Tragic Theologies

Joshua Billings

Published in print: 2014-10-26

This chapter traces the nexus of religion, philosophy, politics, and tragedy, concentrating on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Hölderlin in their years after the Stift. The Tübingen Stift was both a religious and a political institution, ensuring clerical orthodoxy while binding educated citizens to the rulers—an especially important role in an age of changing ideas of authority. Both Hegel and Hölderlin understand Greek tragedy through the lens of theology, and see Sophocles' works as the representation of a moment of transition within Greek religion. In broad terms, their theories differ from Schelling's and Schiller's in seeing Greek tragedy as a historical and progressive art form: tragedy does not just exist within temporality, but is itself a historical force, which reflects and contributes to changes in ancient Greek theology. Moreover, both conceive religion as a central element of social existence, and not as a sphere separated from political life.

In this chapter the issue is not so much the techniques and experience of the singing actor himself, but what the formal structure of Greek tragedy — rhythmically and musically — has to do with its ...
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In this chapter the issue is not so much the techniques and experience of the singing actor himself, but what the formal structure of Greek tragedy — rhythmically and musically — has to do with its ideological meaning. The approach taken owes much in its broad approach to the work of Fredric Jameson on the relationship between a text's patent external form and its latent ‘political unconscious’. It is argued that the aural and musical form of Athenian tragedy — especially the points at which solo song and speech intersected one another — is what Marx would have called a ‘sublimate’ of the social structure and aspirations of the Athenian democracy. Tragic form was partly characterized by patriarchal and ethnocentric notions, even to the point of making its women and barbarians express themselves in vocal media distinguishable in large measure from those adopted by free Greek male characters in their prime.Less

Singing Roles in Tragedy

EDITH HALL

Published in print: 2006-10-12

In this chapter the issue is not so much the techniques and experience of the singing actor himself, but what the formal structure of Greek tragedy — rhythmically and musically — has to do with its ideological meaning. The approach taken owes much in its broad approach to the work of Fredric Jameson on the relationship between a text's patent external form and its latent ‘political unconscious’. It is argued that the aural and musical form of Athenian tragedy — especially the points at which solo song and speech intersected one another — is what Marx would have called a ‘sublimate’ of the social structure and aspirations of the Athenian democracy. Tragic form was partly characterized by patriarchal and ethnocentric notions, even to the point of making its women and barbarians express themselves in vocal media distinguishable in large measure from those adopted by free Greek male characters in their prime.

This chapter asks about the ethics of (lyric and structural) beauty and the politics of pathos in two plays, Trojan Women and Hecuba. The first, Trojan Women, presents a tale of unmitigated misery ...
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This chapter asks about the ethics of (lyric and structural) beauty and the politics of pathos in two plays, Trojan Women and Hecuba. The first, Trojan Women, presents a tale of unmitigated misery and renders it self-consciously beautiful. But how are we to watch this sublime suffering? The play won't let us maintain a safe spectatorial distance; it demands that we watch with pity, but also suggests the insufficiency of that response. Our tears do no good. The insufficiency of pity is also a central theme of the second play, Hecuba. Here pity is shown to be not only politically ineffectual, but in fact morally dangerous: the beauty of tragic suffering generates a perverse investment in that suffering itself, and our longing for the beautiful symmetry of justice makes us complicit in a vicious act of injustice. Both plays thus propose that aesthetic judgments bear ethical and political consequences, but neither takes it for granted that beauty will make us just.Less

Beautiful Tears

Victoria Wohl

Published in print: 2015-06-30

This chapter asks about the ethics of (lyric and structural) beauty and the politics of pathos in two plays, Trojan Women and Hecuba. The first, Trojan Women, presents a tale of unmitigated misery and renders it self-consciously beautiful. But how are we to watch this sublime suffering? The play won't let us maintain a safe spectatorial distance; it demands that we watch with pity, but also suggests the insufficiency of that response. Our tears do no good. The insufficiency of pity is also a central theme of the second play, Hecuba. Here pity is shown to be not only politically ineffectual, but in fact morally dangerous: the beauty of tragic suffering generates a perverse investment in that suffering itself, and our longing for the beautiful symmetry of justice makes us complicit in a vicious act of injustice. Both plays thus propose that aesthetic judgments bear ethical and political consequences, but neither takes it for granted that beauty will make us just.

This concluding chapter argues that although the close connections that gave life to tragedy were severed as the major thinkers drifted apart and turned to other concerns by 1807, in an important ...
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This concluding chapter argues that although the close connections that gave life to tragedy were severed as the major thinkers drifted apart and turned to other concerns by 1807, in an important sense, the history of the tragic had not yet begun. Friedrich Hölderlin's largely unread and totally uncomprehended “Notes” to Sophocles was the only substantial publication directly concerned with the tragic to emerge during this period, and Friedrich Schiller remained by far the most prominent theorist of tragedy. At the same time, translation of Greek works accelerated and improved, while productions of Schiller's The Bride of Messina (1803) across Germany as well as of romantic “tragedies of fate” contributed to a broad interest in high tragedy.Less

Births of the Tragic

Joshua Billings

Published in print: 2014-10-26

This concluding chapter argues that although the close connections that gave life to tragedy were severed as the major thinkers drifted apart and turned to other concerns by 1807, in an important sense, the history of the tragic had not yet begun. Friedrich Hölderlin's largely unread and totally uncomprehended “Notes” to Sophocles was the only substantial publication directly concerned with the tragic to emerge during this period, and Friedrich Schiller remained by far the most prominent theorist of tragedy. At the same time, translation of Greek works accelerated and improved, while productions of Schiller's The Bride of Messina (1803) across Germany as well as of romantic “tragedies of fate” contributed to a broad interest in high tragedy.

This chapter examines those endlessly polymorphous entities, the Erinyes, sometimes the enforcers or even the embodiments of curses and the rectifiers of familial transgression. It first looks at ...
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This chapter examines those endlessly polymorphous entities, the Erinyes, sometimes the enforcers or even the embodiments of curses and the rectifiers of familial transgression. It first looks at their history and nature in life and in genres other than tragedy to learn about their range and prerogatives. Analysis of their appearances in a number of plays where they are crucial shows that in all these texts, they share certain features that set them apart from curses and inherited guilt. Their central place in Aeschylus' Eumenides is then considered, which is often taken, more or less consciously, for a locus classicus. It is shown that the one extant play in which Erinyes almost literally hold centre stage is an exception to the rule in more ways than one. Aeschylus' play helps define the province and limitations of tragic Erinyes.Less

Erinyes

N. J. Sewell‐Rutter

Published in print: 2007-10-01

This chapter examines those endlessly polymorphous entities, the Erinyes, sometimes the enforcers or even the embodiments of curses and the rectifiers of familial transgression. It first looks at their history and nature in life and in genres other than tragedy to learn about their range and prerogatives. Analysis of their appearances in a number of plays where they are crucial shows that in all these texts, they share certain features that set them apart from curses and inherited guilt. Their central place in Aeschylus' Eumenides is then considered, which is often taken, more or less consciously, for a locus classicus. It is shown that the one extant play in which Erinyes almost literally hold centre stage is an exception to the rule in more ways than one. Aeschylus' play helps define the province and limitations of tragic Erinyes.

This chapter discusses Murray's work as a translator of Greek tragedy, examining the linguistic and dramatic aspects of his translations, and emphasizing the scale of his achievement in bringing ...
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This chapter discusses Murray's work as a translator of Greek tragedy, examining the linguistic and dramatic aspects of his translations, and emphasizing the scale of his achievement in bringing tragedy to an greater audience. The chapter mentions his translations of Euripides' Hippolytus, Electra, and the The Trojan Women.Less

Gilbert Murray's Translations of Greek Tragedy

James Morwood

Published in print: 2007-08-01

This chapter discusses Murray's work as a translator of Greek tragedy, examining the linguistic and dramatic aspects of his translations, and emphasizing the scale of his achievement in bringing tragedy to an greater audience. The chapter mentions his translations of Euripides' Hippolytus, Electra, and the The Trojan Women.